Wear plates (also referred to as “wear liners”) are used in the mining industry to protect the interior shell of a grinding mill.
It is known to fasten wear plates to the mill wall from the inside of the grinding mill using long bolts. The installation process involves locating a head of the bolt in a tapered socket which extends through the wear plate. A shank of the bolt is then passed through a wall of the grinding mill, with a nut fastened over a threaded end of the bolt from the outside. However, such installation techniques are time consuming due to the need to precisely align the bolt shanks with the through holes in the mill wall. Furthermore, in view of the considerable weight of the wear plates, there is a risk that operators installing the plates from the inside of the mill may be injured due to a wear plate coming loose during installation.
The removal process is equally time consuming since a build-up of finely ground particulate ore material in and around the tapered sockets and bolts can cause the wear plates to stick to the mill wall. To overcome this, the bolt ends may be hammered from the outside, while operators inside the mill attempt to lever the wear plates from off the wall. It will be appreciated that the removal process also presents a significant risk to the operators due to the wear plates dropping unexpectedly once the nuts have been removed. Another disadvantage is that the bolts are unable to be re-used due to head damage sustained during operation of the mill and as a result of damage to the shank and threaded end from hammering.
It would be advantageous if one or more embodiments of the present disclosure addressed at least one of the disadvantages outlined above.